With Mother’s Day around the corner, Marian Heath releases its Spring collection for 2012. Hennie Haworth’s ‘Mom’ card combines the floral and the feminine for a fresh Mother’s Day look.

HOW Magazine sat down for 5 questions with Chris of Red Nose Studio. Chris talks about the inception of his 3D style and his early collaboration with former HOW art director Amy Hawk.

1. HOW: We are big fans, Chris. I always love to ask creatives how they would describe what they do or their style to a designer living on another planet. Go for it.

Chris: I have a hard enough time verbally describing my work to designers here on earth, I guess if I were accidentally abducted by designer aliens while they were examining the patterns on my neighbor’s cows, I would tell them I build little 3D worlds and take photos of said scenes to have them reproduced on a page to grab a viewers attention for about three seconds and hopefully, lead them to read the story, article or investigate a package (it would probably be faster for me to draw a picture for them). I would then discover that these aliendesigners love to use illustration, new clients would be landed, and the contract clause “in perpetuity throughout the universe” would finally make sense to me.

To read the interview in its entirety, visit How Magazine: 5 Questions with Chris Sickels.

Emiliano Ponzi will participate in a gallery show in Milan titled The Magnificent Seven vs Annus Horibilis.  The artists included in the collective are Giordano Poloni, Sarah Mazzetti, Daniel Frost, Miss Goffetown, Werther, and e.l. The show opens February 8 at Santeria, in Via Ettore Paladini 8. The opening begins at 6:30 PM.

For more details, read the write-up in Il Post or visit Santeria Milano.

Letter Playground is a place where illustrators, type designers, and hand-lettering enthusiasts can share letters in all shapes and forms.  Nate Williams has launched a new feature on Letter Playground called the Ransom Note Generator. Typing into the field will allow the user to generate letters using the vast database of letters on Letter Playground. Try it today!

Graham Roumieu’s art will appear on a line of greeting cards. The cards will be released by Whigby at the New York International Gift Fair.  Graham’s witty cards feature a cleaning maid in the backdrop as Romeo mourns Juliet, a woman celebrating her birthday with her cat, and a ‘bootlicker’ taking deference to the extreme.

Emiliano Ponzi illustrated the cover for the Pennsylvania Gazette, the alumni magazine for the University of Pennsylvania.  The cover celebrates the 150th anniversary of the UPenn Glee Club.

Ana Bagayan’s solo show at the Thinkspace Gallery will open February 4th and run until February 25th.  The show, titled “There is Time to Kill Today” opens with a reception with the artist.

Thinkspace Gallery
6009 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232

Gordon Wiebe’s headlining art for the Fubon Art Festival in Taipei has traveled to Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.  Part of his art, which is titled “Joy Explosion,” has been installed as a skylight at the Dream Mall in central Kaohsiung.

Emiliano Ponzi’s illustrations provide the backdrop for The Biggest Flower in the World, the first and only children’s book by bestselling author and Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago.

When describing his work for the book, Emiliano says: “I [...] mostly worked with wide/empty spaces so children could imagine what they don’t see in my illustrations. There is a lot of ‘air’ in the book, and some details represent fragments from my personal childhood memories, such as my grandma’s house floor or the t-shirts I used to wear when I was a little boy.

It is a ‘mute’ book…in the story there isn’t any dialogue at all, so I kept the same atmosphere where the only sound is the ambient one, from the home’s wooden floor to the wind in the grass, or the water waves produced by fish in the river.”

Visit Emiliano’s blog to see more images of the book.

Graham Roumieu’s most recent bi-monthly contribution to the Globe and Mail’s Focus section has been published.  Titled “Seal Team Six: What are a President’s Ultra-Classified Friends For?,” the illustration imagines zany presidential applications for a highly trained group of Navy SEALS.